Excellent offering from Rurouni (look it up!!) today. A rich variety of clues spanning the entire spectrum of easy write-ins and really difficult ones to crack. I made quick work of the top half and then went plodding through quicksand as I finished the lower half.
Several clues were worthy of a special mention but if I had to pick one of the lot, it would have to be the very first across clue. Having Wine with a Muesli Bar indeed should point to a more serious underlying issue. 🙂
FF: 9 DD:8
| Across | ||
| 1, 5 | BULIMIA NERVOSA |
Vino drunk with a muesli bar shows eating disorder (7,7)
Anagram of VINO A MUESLI BAR. Very neat surface.
|
| 9 | AT WAR |
Fighting fatwa? Ruling holds (2,3)
Hidden in fATWA Ruling
|
| 10 | TATTOOIST |
One who’s got designs on someone – cheap and nasty stuff as well, at first (9)
Charade of TAT (cheap and nasty stuff) TOO (as well) IST (at first – 1st). Another clue that I thought had some clever cluing.
|
| 11 | TOMBSTONE |
Western US city most bet on to be redeveloped (9)
Anagram of MOST BET ON, city in Arizona.
|
| 12 | DULSE |
Expected to eat less less-filling seaweed (5)
DUE (expected) around LesS (less filling, without internal characters)
|
| 13, 15 | SWIM UPSTREAM |
As Mum writes, spa breaks go against the grain (4,8)
Anagram of MUM WRITES SPA
|
| 18, 19 | GRATEFUL DEAD |
Two possible sources for Ashes players, ironically often seen live (8,4)
Source of Ashes can either be Grate (as in the recess of a fireplace) or from the Dead (post cremation). The players here refers to the band of the same name, whose last live performance was in 1995 if I am not wrong.
|
| 22 | UMAMI |
Taste with some hesitation, as MSG involved for starters (5)
UM (some hesitation) AMI (As Msg Involved, starting characters)
|
| 24 | SACKCLOTH |
Notice given before idiot husband makes coarse material (9)
Charade of SACK (notice) CLOT (idiot) H (husband)
|
| 26 | EMBARKING |
Getting on a drug, male gets mad (9)
Charade of E (drug, Ecstacy) M (male) BARKING (mad)
|
| 27 | AMISS |
Novelist’s wrong (5)
AMIS (Novelist – Kingsley, more likely than Martin; Father comes first!) ‘ S
|
| 28, 29 | STEPHEN LANGTON |
Archbishop not bowled over after bit of a dance with female archbishop (7,7)
STEP (bit of a dance) HEN (female) LANG (Archbishop, Cosmo Gordon Lang) TON (not, bowled over) – Archbishop of Canterbury and a central character in the circumstances that led up to the creation of the Magna Carta. Wiki here. I had to get some help from Google to solve this clue and then it took me a while to understand the parsing. Another point to add is, I am not sure which ‘Archbishop’ in the clue should be underlined for definition. Technically, both of them seem to work.
|
| Down | ||
| 1 | BEAUTY |
Boyfriend – toy boy, extremely stunning specimen (6)
BEAU (boyfriend) Toy boY (extremely, first and last characters)
|
| 2 | LAWNMOWER |
It’s true about non-English women, with the whole lot being upset by something cutting (9)
REAL (true) about [WOMeN (non-English) W (
|
| 3 | MARKS |
Scores with a revolutionary sound (5)
Sounds like Marx (revolutionary).
|
| 4 | ASTROTURF |
Furrow turns up in a frost-affected playing surface (9)
RUT (furrow) reversed (turns up) in anagram of A FROST (affected – anagrind). With a stretch of imagination, the ‘playing surface’ part of the clue could be a recursive innuendo to the clue itself.
|
| 5 | NITRE |
Somewhat disconcerting, giving up salt (5)
Hidden in disconcERTINg (reversed, giving up). Have a feeling I have seen this clue before.
|
| 6 | REORDERED |
Once again asked for an anagram indicator? (9)
Cryptic clue / DD
|
| 7 | ORIEL |
Window opening outwards (required in Estonia, Lithuania) (5)
starting characters (opening) of Outwards Required In Estonia Lithuania
|
| 8 | ANTHEM |
Articles on Malta’s first national identity number? (6)
AN THE (articles) on M (Malta’s first character)
|
| 14 | MATRIARCH |
Head of family to get final loss of hearing within a month (9)
TRIAl (hearing = trial, final loss means without the last character) in MARCH (month)
|
| 16 | SILICA GEL |
Heard stupid actor left agent during drying out process (6,3)
Charade of SILI (sounds like silly, stupid) CAGE (actor, the Nicolas variety) L (left)
|
| 17 | ANATOMIST |
Expert on body from military alliance in a film (9)
NATO (military alliance) in A MIST (a film)
|
| 20 | QUEENS |
Place in New York for playing cards (6)
Double def
|
| 21 | THE SUN |
Paper’s regular setter (3,3)
double definition, setter in the connotation of sun-set (for e.g.). I liked this clue for its precise elegance.
|
| 23 | AMBLE |
Countryside walker’s content to walk slowly (5)
rAMBLEr (Countryside walker, content referring to inner characters)
|
| 24 | SCION |
Offshoot of Christianity, originally found in Jerusalem (5)
C (Christianity, originally) in SION (Jerusalem)
|
| 25 | CHAIN |
Roughly half an inch in length? (5)
Anagram of A (half An) INCH – referring to the distance of 66 feet. Not sure this is in use anymore, definitely not in South Asia. [See Shikasta@3].
|
*anagram
Thanks Wanderer and Turbolegs
28/29ac: I agree this works either way round.
6dn: I think “for” is part of the (first) definition.
25dn: My understanding is that chains are still in use as part of official distances on British railways.
Thanks for the blog.
I think that chains are certainly commonly used as measures in S Asia – at least those parts that play cricket since it’s the length between the wickets.
For 2d I had the extra ‘w’ coming from an abbreviation for ‘with’. The reference to ‘whole’ is telling us that all the letters have to be reversed.
Thanks to Turbolegs and Wanderer
Thanks to all for the comments. Edits made as necessary. I hope you guys found it as much fun as I did solving this one.
Cheers
TL
Thanks Wanderer and Turbolegs
My experience reflects yours with the top half basically written straight in. It was up to the two outside down clues to provide the toehold into the bottom half.
Some really neat surfaces that linked closely back to the solution – UMAMI is the standout, a previously unknown word that is the natural taste of MSG – quite brilliant! Thought that GRATEFUL DEAD was good as well with nice misdirection via the surface to cricket.
Had parsed CHAIN slightly differently … C (roughly) H (half) A (an) IN (inch) … but think that yours is better.